


After the End

by diandrahollman



Category: Lost
Genre: Brief Jack/Juliet in the sideways verse, David is real, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jack dies (sorry), M/M, Multi, Post-Finale, Seizures, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-23
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 14:44:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3696227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diandrahollman/pseuds/diandrahollman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It was over.” But was it really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jack

The pain was gone.

Jack knew that was a bad sign. He knew it meant his body and mind were shutting down.

He chuckled weakly as the plane flew overhead. It was over. His friends – the people he loved - would be safe. They had won.

He could finally let go.

He closed his eyes. He felt Vincent shift closer, trying in vain to lend him some warmth. And then he couldn’t feel anything anymore.

There was no white light. No tunnel. He wasn’t greeted by the people he’d lost in life. There was just darkness and voices drifting around him, muted and distant.

“...hear me? Jack...”

“How long...”

“Is he...”

“...I don’t know, okay?”

He knew the voices. Hurley. Desmond. But he couldn’t understand *why* he was still hearing them. He was dead. He had to be. But they were still alive – he had made sure of that.

The voices continued – some he recognized and some he didn’t – but he stopped listening to them. It no longer mattered. *He* no longer mattered.

“...hear us?”

“I don’t know...”

Kate. Sawyer. But that couldn’t be possible. They had left the island. He tried to focus on what they were saying, but it was too difficult. They kept fading in and out. Or maybe he was the one fading in and out. But why? Shouldn’t he have left his body already?

“...should see ‘im. Looks more like you every day. ‘cept for the hair, of course. But he’s a Shephard all right.”

The numbing fog that had surrounded Jack lifted suddenly and he could hear Sawyer’s voice clearly. He could also, he realized, hear the rhythmic whooshing of a respirator and all the other myriad background noises of a hospital ICU.

“Never thought I’d see Freckles playin’ momma, but she sure loves that kid.” He snorted. “The hell ‘m I sayin’? You know that. Still can’t believe you forgot to mention you two were engaged.”

The puzzling realization that Sawyer was talking to *him* was quickly followed by a blaze of understanding.

‘I’m alive.’

His awareness came back to him slowly. He felt a warm weight covering one of his hands. Every time he took a breath, he felt air being gently pushed into his lungs in rhythm with the wooshing respirator.

Sawyer sighed heavily and Jack felt the weight on his hand shift. Sawyer’s hand, he realized. “Never thought I’d miss the sound of your voice,” Sawyer murmured. “Never thought I’d miss *you*. Y’gotta wake up, Doc. I don’t care what those other doctors think. I know you’re still in there.”

Jack tried to open his eyes but they felt glued shut. The more he tried, the more he felt drawn back toward the numbing comfort of blackness. How long had he been in that state?

Sawyer’s thumb rubbed the back of his hand. Jack narrowed his focus to that one point of contact. If he could concentrate hard enough, maybe he could move the muscles in his fingers.

“It killed me to just leave you there, you know,” Sawyer continued. “Bleedin’ to death like that. But you wanted me to go. I could see it in your eyes. You wanted me to make sure Freckles and your sister made it back safe. Wanted us to get offa that island for good.” He let out a sad, half-chuckle. “Fuckin’ martyr.”

Jack focused all of his energy on making his index finger move, but it was like trying to run from a nightmare – his body just didn’t want to respond to his mind’s commands. ‘Move, damnit,’ he thought desperately.

Sawyer gasped. “Doc?”

The thumb rubbing Jack’s hand froze and Jack hoped fervently that it meant Sawyer had felt his feeble attempt at communication.

A chair creaked as Sawyer leaned closer. “Can you hear me?”

‘Yes,’ Jack’s mind screamed.

The grip on his hand shifted, clutching more firmly and raising Jack’s hand a few inches. “Doc? If you can hear me...squeeze my hand.”

The muscles in Jack’s forearm screamed in protest of the sudden movement, but the pain helped, reawakening the nerve endings along Jack’s arm. This time, Jack felt his fingers fold slowly, stiffly, within Sawyer’s grip.

There was a dull thumping noise Jack couldn’t identify and then Sawyer was leaning over him, pressing the palm of his other hand gently to Jack’s forehead. “Don’t try to talk,” he murmured. “Y’got a tube in your throat.”

Jack squeezed his hand, the movement much easier this time.

“Jesus...” Sawyer made a noise like a tiny sob. “It’s okay, Doc. You’re gonna be alright.”

A door opened somewhere and a voice Jack vaguely recognized from another life said, “Mr. LaFleur?”

“He’s awake. He’s squeezin’ my hand.”

The newcomer sighed heavily. “James...”

“It ain’t a reflex this time, Doc.”

Gentle fingers pried Jack’s right eye open and a bright light sent a stabbing pain through his skull. He gripped Sawyer’s hand, a helpless scream ripping from his chest. The sound that reaching his ears was garbled and weak, unrecognizable.

Everything went fuzzy. The next thing Jack was aware of was a hand squeezing his shoulder.

“Jack? Can you hear me?”

His hand responded almost before his mind commanded it to, squeezing within Sawyer’s steadfast hold.

“Yeah,” Sawyer relayed.

There was a moment of hesitation before the doctor continued. “I gave you something for the pain. I’m going to turn the ventilator off now. Just try to relax and breathe normally.”

The face that went with the voice swam to the forefront of Jack’s dazed mind. The kind eyes and patient smile. Dr. Hamill.

The loud hiss of the ventilator stopped and Jack’s mind drifted fuzzily while Dr. Hamill checked his breathing. Sawyer was stroking the back of his hand again and he wondered at the gesture. Their relationship had always been tenuous and rocky, but this tenderness was new. He hadn’t stopped touching Jack since he woke up.

“Okay, Jack, I’m going to take the tube out. Take a deep breath for me?”

Jack inhaled as deeply as he could, which didn’t feel like much at all.

“And blow,” Dr. Hamill instructed.

Jack exhaled and felt the unpleasant sensation of the plastic tube sliding from his trachea. He coughed and whimpered, the garbled sounds emerging from his throat resembling a wounded animal more than anything recognizably human.

A mask covered his nose and mouth, oxygen already flowing. “That’s it,” Dr. Hamill murmured as he secured the mask with practiced ease. “Take it easy.”

Jack tried one more time to open his eyes, though he could feel the pain medication numbing his senses, coaxing him back into the warm safety of sleep. He thought he caught a faint glimpse of two blurry figures hovering on either side of him before the meds won the battle and dragged him under.

 

TBC


	2. Kate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It was over.” But was it really?

Kate had been numb since the Ajira Six – as the media had insisted on calling them – had returned to civilization. She had been arrested almost immediately for violating the terms of her parole. The second hearing went much the same as the first except for two significant differences.

Jack was not there to testify on her behalf. Claire did an admirable job in his stead, though, explaining that Kate had refused to accept Claire’s presumed death and risked her life to save her. The tears in the blonde’s eyes as she’d described how she had given up all hope of ever seeing her son again until Kate had rescued her was what really sold it. She’d made Kate sound like a hero riding in on a white horse to save the day.

The second difference was that Kate no longer cared what the verdict was. She had watched dispassionately as Claire, Claire’s mother and Cassidy all testified on her behalf. She had watched her lawyer once again paint her as the saintly leader – a woman who had defied the odds and risked everything to do what was right for the child she had cared for in his mother’s absence. None of it mattered anymore. Jack was dead. Aaron had been reunited with his real mother. There was nothing left to give her purpose.

Then Sawyer had wormed his way back into her life.

He had moved in with her, despite her half-hearted objections, and proceeded to force her back into the world. He dragged her to social events and dinners at fancy restaurants (“all on Ajira’s dime” he’d said with a smirk). Kate had suspected Claire had something to do with his sudden interest in her happiness.

She had resented it. He was just trying to make her forget everything she had lost, everything she’d left behind and move on, she’d thought. When she finally snapped at him to leave her *alone*, damnit, he had brought up the one subject they hadn’t dared talk to each other about since their return.

“You think I don’t miss ‘im too?” he had yelled.

She had broken down then, crying in his arms while he’d told her – his voice breaking and strained – that she and Jack had been his only friends in the world after they’d crashed on the island.

“You said you wanted him to suffer,” she’d hissed. “You told those people at the temple...”

“I was pissed off. After Juliet...” He’d swallowed heavily, his jaw tightening at the memory. “I was lookin’ for someone to blame. But when I saw him bleedin’ in your arms...” His voice had dropped, taking on a dark tone she had only heard him use once before. “I wanted that bastard wearin’ Locke’s body to move just so I could shoot ‘im myself.”

She had stopped resisting his efforts to reassimilate her into the world of the living after that and he had stopped pushing her quite so hard. They had fallen back into something like a shadow of their former relationship. Two broken, damaged people finding comfort and solace in each other’s arms.

It had been nearly two months since they had returned when everything had changed.

The details of that moment were burned on her memory. The cup falling from her nerveless fingers to shatter on the parquet floor. The freshly poured coffee splattering across her bare feet. Sawyer rushing down the stairs to find her standing, half-dressed in his button down shirt in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the newspaper clutched in her trembling hands.

The article had said that a small raft carrying two men had washed up on the shore of a tiny island in the South Pacific. One of the men was identified as Desmond Hume – the late Charles Widmore’s son-in-law - who had mysteriously disappeared two months before. The other man was not identified by name. All that was known was that he was in a coma – seemingly as a result of a nearly fatal stab wound.

Somehow, Sawyer had convinced her to calm down and get dressed while he made a series of phone calls to the newspaper, an airline and at least three hospitals.

Late that evening, she had stood beside a hospital bed, staring down at a face she had just begun to accept she would never see again.

Sawyer had helped her into a chair before she collapsed and stood beside her as she had rested her head on Jack’s broad chest and cried herself to exhaustion.

He shouldn’t have been alive, the doctors kept saying. He’d lost too much blood...his body had taken too great a beating. They had told her he might never wake up. She had nodded, quietly accepting their diagnosis, even as her mind railed against it. This was *Jack*, after all. He was a fighter.

Sawyer had agreed and they had both spent countless hours at his bedside, talking to him, touching him, helping the nurses with his care. The parallels between their drive to coax him back to the waking world and Sawyer’s drive to drag Kate from her self-imposed isolation were not lost on her.

Now, two months after Jack had been miraculously returned to them, it appeared their efforts had finally paid off.

Kate sat beside the hospital bed, nursing her third cup of coffee. At least the hospital claimed it was coffee – a fact she had disputed many times over the past months. Jack lay half-curled, facing her. She had barely had time to really accept that Jack was gone before he had returned. Everything was still so surreal that part of her expected to wake up one day and realize it had all been a cruel dream. She let her eyes trace over his features, as she had nearly every day since his return. He was thinner, his hair longer. He looked older somehow.

Her breath caught as Jack’s eyes fluttered ever so slightly. It could have been nothing, she knew. But regardless, she held perfectly still, barely breathing, and waited. She was just beginning to think she may have imagined it after all when his lids fluttered again – this time accompanied by a tiny, breathy moan.

Kate set her cup on the tray table absently as she crouched by the bed, her face inches from his. “Jack,” she called softly, letting her fingertips brush his cheek gently.

Jack inhaled sharply and Kate caught the barest hint of greenish brown before his eyes squeezed shut with a wince. The lights in the room had been dimmed considerably, but after months in a coma, Jack’s eyes were sensitive to any sensory input.

“K...Kay...” The sound was so soft, Kate could barely hear it, but it was unmistakeable.

Tears sprang to Kate’s eyes and her hands trembled as she swept back a lock of his hair. She may have refused to believe he could die, but a part of her had feared it was inevitable. She had been braced for that possibility, anticipating the potential fallout from having her heart broken all over again. But now, she felt the lingering fear - and the accompanying desire to get as far away from the source of it as possible - finally melt away.

“Yeah,” she choked out. “It’s me. I’m here.” ‘You’re here.’

She slipped her hand into his, squeezing gently. She felt him squeeze back – weak, but definitely deliberate – and the tears broke free, spilling down her cheeks.

“Where...”

Kate sniffled lightly, swiping at her cheek with her free hand. “Uh...we’re back in Los Angeles. St. Sebastien’s.”

“Sawyer...”

Kate smiled. He remembered. “He’s at a job interview. He’ll be back this afternoon.” She thought of the look on Sawyer’s face when he’d told her Jack had woken up. He had been practically bursting with excitement. They would need official confirmation from the doctors, but so far it seemed that Jack’s mental faculties were intact.

She leaned in to kiss him, surprised to discover he had morning breath. ‘Nobody’s brushed his teeth today,’ she thought. Then she realized, with a smile, that he could do that for himself again and made a mental note to help him with that later.

Jack tried to kiss her back, but it was obviously taking all of what little energy he had to speak. “What...happ’ned,” he forced out when she pulled back.

“I don’t know. They found you in the jungle. Hurley and Ben. You were breathing, but they couldn’t wake you up. Desmond brought you home.” She stroked his cheek, squeezing his hand gently as he struggled to speak again.

“How...long...”

“Four months. You’ve been in a coma for four months.”

Jack nodded, his eyes fluttering shut, obviously exhausted by their brief conversation. “Sorry...”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Kate murmured, kissing his forehead. “Go back to sleep. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

But he didn’t seem to hear her. “Forgot...pick up...David...”

Kate frowned. The hand she had been stroking Jack’s hair with absently hesitated. “David?”

Jack muttered something indistinct. Kate swore she heard the words “piano lesson”.

And then all hell broke loose.

Tremors rolled over Jack’s body. His hand went limp in her grasp. The monitor next to the bed began to beep frantically.

Everything happened quickly after that. Kate ran for the door, a desperate scream for help on her lips, but the nurses were already headed her way. One was Victoria, the serene, striking woman with mocha colored skin who Kate had gotten to know pretty well over the past months. The others, she barely recognized.

Victoria pulled her aside and spoke in soothing tomes, but she couldn’t understand the words.

“He was fine,” she kept babbling. “He was talking to me.”

She was bordering on hysterics by the time Jack stopped shaking, even though the entire episode had probably lasted well under five minutes. It took five more minutes for Victoria to calm her down.

Her heart was still pounding when Sawyer arrived an hour later.

 

TBC - Next chapter: Sawyer!


	3. Sawyer (+ Epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heed the warnings. The forecast for the "Sawyer" portion of this chapter is 100% chance of a bedroom gymnastics between three people with periodic hints of het and slash. Special thanks goes to my keyboard for dropping the "h" just now and forcing me to imagine "tree" people having sex (Ents, maybe?).

Late onset Epilepsy. That’s what the doctor’s ultimately diagnosed Jack with. That along with partial hearing loss in one ear and a total loss of his sense of smell.

Sawyer had spent the better part of that first night reassuring Kate that Jack would be all right, cursing the fact that he hadn’t been there for either of them when all hell had broken loose. He tried to make up for it by throwing himself into Jack’s rehabilitation, all but taking charge of his physical therapy. Much to Jack’s irritation. Of course, everything irritated Jack once he was fully cognizant. The saying turned out to be true in his case; doctors really did make the worst patients. Of course, Sawyer believed that had less to do with the fact that he was a doctor and more to do with the fact that he was a stubborn son of a bitch who would rather fall on his face than admit he needed help.

The first time he'd kissed Jack it was to make him shut up. It had worked. So well, in fact, that Sawyer had found himself wishing he'd tried it before.

It was easier than any of them would have expected after that. Once the hospital discharged Jack, Sawyer and Kate took him home where he insisted on acting like a guest until the night Sawyer crawled into the guest bed with him and told him to "shove it" when he protested. It still took some coaxing from both Sawyer and Kate to get him to join them in their king-sized bed. None of them made any overtly sexual moves initially, content with more simple displays of affection. The shift toward a more sexual relationship came gradually after that.

Now, two years later, Sawyer marveled at how far they had come. He lay on one side of the bed, stripped down to his boxers, fighting the urge to touch himself as he watched Jack and Kate. Kate writhed beneath Jack, arching into his slow, rolling thrusts, her legs wrapped high around his waist, her nails digging tiny half moons on his back. Jack was always so gentle with Kate, like she was something fragile - precious. She loved it, but she also loved it when Sawyer fucked her hard and fast and desperate - leaving bruises that were still visible the next day.

Her eyes met Sawyer's as Jack kissed her neck, her eyes so dark with arousal they appeared black in the soft light of the bedroom. There was something inherently wild about her - something Jack could only pretend he had any control over and Sawyer didn't even try to. Watching her in these intimate moments was fascinating. And Jack...Sawyer let his eyes trace the lines of Jack's body, watching the muscles flex beneath his skin as he moved. He wasn't sure which he wanted more; to be where Kate was, feeling that power surging over him, inside him or to be inside Jack, feeling those muscles tremble beneath him, around him, making Jack writhe with mindless pleasure. He had already been in Jack's place earlier in the evening.

Kate growled and began pushing and pulling at Jack's shoulders insistently. "Over," she said until Jack finally took the hint and rolled off of her, landing on his back beside Sawyer. He hissed as his cock slipped free into the cool air, then groaned as Kate straddled him, taking him back into her wet heat. She paused for a moment, pushing her hair back away from her face and bracing her palms against Jack's chest before she began moving again, her thrusts just as slow as his had been but more forceful, purposeful. She glanced at Sawyer. "You just gonna lay there," she panted.

Sawyer smiled and reached for her thigh, letting his fingers dance lightly along her damp skin. "I'm enjoyin' the show."

Jack - obviously too far gone for subtlety - grabbed Sawyer's wandering hand and thrust it between Kate's legs, pressing his fingers against her swollen clit. She gasped and picked up the pace.

"Well, if you insist..." He sat up and moved behind Kate, straddling Jack's thighs. She sat back, sinking into his chest, her head falling on his shoulder, sighing as his hands immediately went to her breasts, fingers deftly manipulating her erect nipples. Kate sighed and plunged her fingers into his hair, drawing him into a sloppy kiss.

Sawyer heard Jack groan and saw a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. He didn't need to look to know what he was doing. Kate's hand tightened in his hair, her rolling thrusts growing erratic. "That's it," he coaxed between kisses, his voice low, almost a growl. He kept up his manipulation of her breast with one hand, letting the other smooth down her stomach, his fingers gently curling in the trimmed hair above Jack's working hand.

She came with a wild yell, writhing mindlessly against them. Jack cried out shortly after, arching up toward her. Sawyer watched as the pleasure washed over both of their faces, Kate's eyes sliding shut while Jack's grew glassy and distant. They were both so beautiful...

He swallowed a groan as his cock throbbed. He had already come earlier in the evening, but he was ready to go another round.

He felt Kate's body go boneless in his arms and eased her down on top of Jack, crawling back to lay on the empty bed beside them. He watched them slowly come back to themselves, sharing breathless kisses. Jack swept her hair back tenderly and nuzzled her cheek.

Sawyer gave in to the impulse to touch himself then - pushing his boxers down his hips and fisting his cock almost lazily. He bit back a groan as Kate's hooded gaze met his, then hissed as she suddenly reached for his wrist, stalling his movements.

"Wait," she murmured almost sleepily. "Not like that."

Sawyer's lips curled into a smirk. "You ready to go again already?"

"Mmm, no. I wanna watch." She pushed herself up enough that she could look into Jack's eyes. "That okay?"

They both knew what Jack's answer would be before he gave it. He could never deny Kate anything. He nodded and kissed her one last time - a sweet, almost chaste kiss - before she slipped off of him and sprawled comfortably on the other side of the bed.

Jack turned to Sawyer and started to sit up. Sawyer could see what he intended to do but that wasn't what he wanted this time. He stopped Jack with a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him back down.

"What..." Jack's protest cut off abruptly as Sawyer bent to kiss him. He sighed and closed his eyes as Sawyer trailed kisses across his cheek and gently nibbled his ear.

"Lady wants a show, Doc," Sawyer breathed, feeling Jack shiver slightly.

He took his time, slowly working his way down Jack's body with soft kisses and gentle bites, running his fingertips reverently over the scar on his abdomen. A tiny, high pitch noise escaped Jack as he ran his tongue along the length of his soft cock, tasting both him and Kate. There was no need for condoms between the three of them anymore. He glanced up at Kate as he swallowed Jack's length. The faint light of the bedroom glinted off her dark eyes, making them appear to twinkle as she smiled at him. His view was blocked suddenly when Jack reached to tangle his fingers in his hair. He refocused on the doctor, working him over, taking him deep and then pulling back to swirl his tongue around the sensitive head, feeling Jack's cock begin to thicken again, his moans growing deeper, more abandoned. Kate must have seen the shift too, because he heard her rummage around in the bedside drawer. He knew what she was looking for and sat up as she rolled back toward them with a tube of lubricant.

"Gettin' impatient there, Freckles?"

She held the tube out to him, looking not the least bit embarrassed even if her cheeks did redden a little.

Sawyer didn't take it. "How 'bout you do it for me?" Her eyes darkened, darting to Jack for a moment, her lips parting with her almost imperceptibly quickening breaths. Sawyer smiled and added "that sound like a fair trade?"

Understanding crossed her face and she nodded, flipping open the cap and squeezing lube onto her palm without any further hesitation.

Sawyer crawled up the bed and kissed Jack hungrily, swallowing his groans as Kate began to stretch him. He worked his way down Jack's body slowly, with lingering kisses and teasing licks. He didn't have to look at Kate to know what she was doing. He felt Jack arch, his breath catching when she hit just the right spot...and grunt and squirm when she didn't. He loved having her do this. Her fingers weren't as thick as his, but she was just as merciless in her manipulations. She knew just how far and how hard to push Jack to drive him crazy without driving him over the edge.

He was so focused on his own administrations that he nearly jumped when Kate placed a gentle hand on his back. He looked up at her, dazed. She smiled and gave a little nod of her head. He's ready, the look clearly said.

Sawyer crawled back toward her, kissing her hungrily while her wet hand wrapped around his straining erection, preparing him. He thought he could hear Jack groaning, but he couldn't be sure. It could have just as easily been his own voice.

She knew how to stop before she sent him over the edge too. Sawyer watched her crawl back toward her side of the bed before refocusing his attention on Jack. He knelt between his legs, gently pressing on the backs of his thighs to spread them further.

"I'm ready," Jack said before he could ask. "Fuck me."

Sawyer bit back a growl. He leaned over to grab the pillow from behind Jack's head, stuffing it under the former doctor's hips before lining himself up and shoving home in one powerful thrust.

Jack cried out at the sudden invasion, his muscles spasming. "Oh, shit," he moaned, his back arching as Sawyer began to thrust.

Sawyer caught his wrists and pinned them to the mattress beside his head, leaning low over him. "This what you wanted," he panted, nipping at Jack's parted lips.

Jack groaned and pulled against Sawyer's restraining hands, craning his head awkwardly to try to capture Sawyer's mouth. Sawyer kept staying stubbornly just out of reach though, teasing him with the barest touches of lips, tongue, teeth. He finally gave up and let his head fall back with a frustrated moan, his neck arching invitingly.

Sawyer chuckled breathlessly and licked at his throat. He spared a glance at Kate and grinned - as best he could in his advanced state of arousal. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide and dark. Her fingers twitched like she was barely resisting the urge to touch one or both of them. He looked her in the eye and nodded, silently granting permission for something she probably hadn't yet thought to ask for. She bit her lip and nodded back.

Sawyer gave one last nip to Jack's chin and pushed himself upright, sitting back.

Jack barely had time to register that his arms were free again before Sawyer resumed his slow, rolling thrusts, this time cupping Jack's hips, guiding his movements.

Sawyer was just beginning to wonder if he had misread Kate's expression when suddenly she slipped against Jack's side and leaned in to kiss him, muffling the noises spilling from his lips. Her hand wandered to the knee closest to her, fingers absently tracing delicate patterns on the inside of Jack's thigh. He groaned and tangled his fingers in her hair, the kiss faltering as her hand trailed inward to wrap lightly around his renewed erection. Sawyer watched the movements of her hand - the teasing, too-gentle strokes - and slowed his thrusts to match her.

Jack made a strangled noise of complaint and squirmed beneath them. His eyes met Sawyer's as Kate moved to kiss and lick her way down his body, his breath catching, then his head fell back with a groan as Kate's lips wrapped around his straining cock.

Sawyer resumed watching what Kate was doing, trying to match his thrusts to her intensity. He wanted to comb his fingers through her hair, push the riot of mussed curls from her face so he could get a clear view of her lips stretched obscenely around Jack, but Jack's hips wouldn't stop twitching in his grip. He tightened his grip and spread his knees, adding a roll of his hips to every slow thrust, pushing against Jack's prostate.

"Fuck," Jack moaned, his back arching, his fingers twisting in the rumpled sheets. "Ka...oh...m...more."

Sawyer wasn't sure which of them he was referring to, but he took it as an invitation to thrust harder, picking up the pace a little. Kate pulled back and swirled her tongue around Jack's weeping tip before swallowing him down again, the move so obscene that it sent a shudder of pure, fiery lust through Sawyer that was only amplified by the deep, abandoned moan it drew from Jack. She looked up at Sawyer from beneath her lashes, a wicked gleam in her eyes and he knew she had intended that little move to affect both of them.

It didn't take long for Jack to come apart. He shuddered and writhed as Sawyer continued to thrust and Kate gradually gentled her ministrations, easing him through the tremors until, overwhelmed, he begged her to stop. Sawyer let go then, thrusting mindlessly, barely registering that she had moved until her lips closed over his, her tongue plunging into his mouth, tangling with his, letting him taste the familiar, heady mixture of both of his lovers. He growled as he came, his uncoordinated thrusts slowing to a halt, his mouth going slack against hers.

He pulled out, rubbing Jack's legs as he hissed in discomfort. No doubt they would all be feeling the effects of the last couple hours in the morning. He flopped to the bed beside the doctor, panting as his heartbeat thundered in his ears. "Yer both gonna kill me."

Jack squeezed his knee - the closest part of him he could reach with the minimal amount of effort - and Kate smiled, bending to kiss him again, this time sweetly and chastely. "I'm gonna take a shower while you catch your breath," she teased. She let her fingers trail along Jack's arm as she slipped from the bed.

"Just don't use all the hot water," Sawyer called after her. He reached for the box of tissues they kept near the bed and wiped the worst of the stickiness from his skin before offering a handful to Jack. "You okay?"

Jack smiled and nodded wearily, handing the soiled tissues back to Sawyer to throw in the waste basket before easing himself from the other side of the bed, fishing in a drawer of the nearby dresser for a cigarette and his lighter.

Sawyer watched him, noting the slight stumble in his gait as he moved closer to the window. Kate had given up asking Jack to quit smoking, but Jack had agreed to do whatever he could to minimize the amount of second-hand smoke in the house. She still didn't like that he did it - or that Sawyer occasionally stole one from him - but she didn't say anything. They all pretended the reason for her acceptance of this habit wasn't that they knew it couldn't shorten his life expectancy any more than it already was.

If you have a condition that could cause you to drop dead suddenly at any time, you stop worrying about the possibility of a slow-killer like cancer.

Sawyer bit back a groan as he followed, his muscles starting to complain from the overuse. Jack wordlessly handed him the lit cigarette as Sawyer leaned on the rail of the false balcony beside him. Sawyer took a puff and handed it back, exhaling slowly.

"Show off."

Sawyer smirked. "Hey, I ain't the one who came twice in an hour. Not sure you should be doin' marathons like that at your age. And don't even think 'bout puttin' the blame on me when you can't walk tomorrow. That was all you. Well, you and Freckles."

Jack snorted and took a long drag from the cigarette, staring into the distance, lost in thought.

Sawyer reached over to rub the small of Jack's back. "Sure you're okay?"

Jack sighed and arched slightly into the pressure of Sawyer's hand. "Just thinking."

"'bout what?"

"This...us. The island. Hurley."

Sawyer sighed. "Thought we talked about this. It ain't your fault."

"I know. I just don't understand. I should have died. I had accepted that I had to die to save the rest of you..."

"Hey." Sawyer framed Jack's face between his hands and forced his head to turn, meeting his pained gaze. "We all got survivor's guilt. That don't mean we can't make the best outta the time we still got here." He kissed Jack almost chastely. "Me 'n Kate were more 'n happy to get you back for however much time we could get and I don't give a damn if that makes us selfish."

Jack's lips twitched in a half-hearted smile. Sawyer let his hands fall and they simply leaned against each other in companionable silence for a while, passing the cigarette between them. "You ever wonder what our lives would have been like if we hadn't crashed," Jack asked suddenly.

"No."

Jack blinked at him, silently prompting him to continue.

Sawyer shrugged. "It ain't worth thinkin' about. You guys were the best thing to happen to me. All o' you. Yeah, a lot of awful shit happened on that island, but if we hadn't'a crashed there I never would'a met you, Kate, Hugo, Juliet..." His voice cracked and he coughed lightly to cover it. "Jin...your sister...Yeah, we lost some of 'em. But we wouldn't 'a known 'em at all if it hadn't been for that hellhole bringin' us all together." He took a long drag from the cigarette and let his fingers linger on Jack's as he passed it back. "I got a lotta regrets, but that ain't one of 'em."

Sawyer watched Jack idly trace the grain of wood in the banister as they lapsed back into silence. He knew Jack was conflicted on this point. He felt an unjustified amount of responsibility for everything that had happened to them. As if he was responsible for all the heartache and death they had experienced and he would accept the alternative of never having known any of them if it meant he could undo all the pain and suffering that had come with their stay on the island.

"Did you pick up David from school," Jack asked suddenly, interrupting Sawyer's train of thought.

Even though this scenario had played out enough times that Sawyer recognized the warning signs immediately, it never failed to send a chill down his back. He grabbed the cigarette from Jack's fingers and stubbed it out on the banister, forcing himself to stay calm as he guided Jack away from the window and back toward the bed.

Jack made noises of protest, confused. "What are you..." His face went slack suddenly and Sawyer barely managed to get him onto the bed before his eyes rolled and his limbs started to twitch.

"Kate," Sawyer called as he rolled Jack onto his side.

Kate, recognizing the tone of Sawyer's voice, emerged from the bathroom still tying the sash from her robe around her waist, droplets of water clinging to the ends of her hair. She headed straight for the dresser, retrieving Jack's medication, filling the syringe with practiced efficiency and barely having to pause once she returned to the bed before jabbing it into Jack's shoulder. "How long?"

"'bout a minute," Sawyer replied, not taking his eyes from the bedside clock.

The seizure lasted another full minute before ending as abruptly as it had started. Sawyer crawled tentatively back onto the bed, watching for any lingering spasms, and pressed carefully against his back. Kate gently pried his mouth open to check the damage to his tongue and then slipped onto the bed in front of him, her fingers delicately tracing the lines of his face, watching his fluttering eyelids for signs of returning awareness.

"He mentioned David again," Sawyer whispered.

Kate gave him a sad look. "That one wasn't as bad as the last one," she said with a hollow sort of hope. She knew the seizures would never go away. She knew that one day Jack would have one so severe that he simply wouldn't wake up and there was nothing any of them could do about it. But she held on to the hope that that final seizure would happen sometime during the night when he was asleep and blissfully unaware. That hope was two parts a wish that he would suffer as little as possible - merely go to sleep and not wake up the next morning - and one part a selfish desire to not have to witness it.

Jack regained consciousness two minutes after the seizure ended, announcing his return with a weak groan.

"S'okay, Doc," Sawyer murmured, his hand coming around to rub Jack's chest soothingly. "Y' had a seizure. We're here. Breathe."

Kate stroked his arms and squeezed his hands reassuringly, kissing his knuckles. "You're okay," she added. "It's gonna be okay."

 

*****************  
Epilogue

 

One year after Jack came home from the hospital, Kate announced she was pregnant. She offered to get a paternity test, but both men brushed off the idea. Kate secretly hoped it was Jack's - if for no other reason then it meant part of him would get to live on in spite of everything. She suspected Sawyer felt the same way, but neither of them spoke of it.

Whenever the topic of names came up, they found it easy to come up with one they could all agree on if the baby was a girl - Juliet - but much more difficult if the baby was a boy. Jack was opposed to the idea of naming him after either himself or his father, feeling that the child should have his own identity unencumbered by their baggage. Since neither Kate or Sawyer had male relatives they felt worthy of having their child named after him, they had to agree. Even though it felt strange and they all rebelled against the idea of unavoidable destiny it suggested, there was one name they kept coming back to so often that they finally decided it was the best fit.

David Hugo Austin was three years old when Jack died. As Kate had hoped, he went in his sleep, although due to his already failing health he was in the hospital at the time. Kate was at home with David - at Sawyer's insistence - when it happened. Sawyer's voice was rough and tired when he called from the hospital early in the morning. He told her later that he had stayed up all night talking to him, even though Jack wasn't cognizant for most of it. He had made promises to take care of both Kate and David, to make sure David knew who his daddy had been and just how much he had meant to them all.

What he left out was the other promise he made in the middle of the night when Jack had started whispering in broken fragments about Juliet and his father, as if he knew he was closer to them in that moment than any of the people he was leaving behind. In that moment, Sawyer forgot that he didn't really believe in any sort of afterlife and asked Jack to wait for them. If it turned out there was something waiting for them after death, he promised he would not rest until he found Jack, Kate and Juliet again. "And if you can find Muhammed, Jin and Hugo while you're at it, I'd like to see 'em again."

He had meant what he had said to Jack that day. The island may have kicked up a storm of shit in all of their lives, but it had also brought them all together. It was both the worst and the best experience of his life. And if there was something after this world, he could not imagine experiencing it without the people he had come to think of as his friends and family.

****************

Juliet was pretty sure she had never been so exhausted in her life. But she couldn't sleep. Not yet.

She smiled as her husband pressed a kiss to her sweaty temple and murmured "you're incredible."

"Dad, do you want to hold him," the attending doctor asked.

Jack squeezed her hand and turned to accept the whimpering bundle the nurse handed him, his movements hesitant and awkward, as if he was being handed something extremely fragile and was terrified of dropping it. He held the baby for a while as the full weight of the moment settled on him. Tears sprang to his eyes and he grinned at the impossibly small human with dark fuzz for hair. He bent over the bed again, carefully transferring the bundle into Juliet's arms, but unable to bring himself to take his own hands away.

"Have you picked out a name yet," one of the nurses asked as she checked the monitor beside the bed.

They had discussed many possibilities, but now as Juliet looked down at their child, only one of them seemed right.

"David. David Shephard."

 

THE END


End file.
